Role of a Lifetime

And so Frederick I. Douglas, this man from the small-town America of Meadville, Pa., this former photojournalist and communications director at Morgan State University, has tried to rewrite history to add himself and his relatives to the Frederick Douglass family tree, modifying his name along the way. He has claimed a blood connection to one of the greatest figures in American history, a black man whose life spanned the trauma of slavery, the Civil War and an embattled freedom.

"Douglass has this place now in our culture of sort of the black founder," says David Blight of Yale University, author of "Frederick Douglass's Civil War." To claim to be a descendant of Frederick Douglass, Blight said, "is like claiming a piece of [Thomas] Jefferson almost, for better or worse."

Born a slave on Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1818 and put to work in Baltimore, Douglass learned to read, ran away in 1838 and became perhaps the most credible moral voice against human bondage. Through his extensive writings and oratory, he gave credence to the yearnings of millions of black people as they journeyed through slavery to liberty. And he exhorted them to "agitate, agitate agitate" to force America to mend its ways.

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?" he asked famously in an 1852 speech, then answered: "bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy."

Douglas, who has recited that speech in at least one performance, speaks of his "passion" for Douglass. He says he has a sense of responsibility to him that he tries to inculcate in young people, telling them, "You have an obligation to those who came before you, who came through servitude and became free and worked so hard. So you not only have a right to succeed, but you have an obligation. You really owe a debt to those who came before you."

His life as Douglass's descendant, he says, fulfills the charge his dying mother gave him back in Meadville, where his parents and his grandparents nurtured great aspirations for their Douglas line, even managing to send Douglas's dad to Howard University in the 1930s.

This is what Sallie V. Douglas said to her son in 1990, he recalls: " 'You have the lineage, the heritage, and I want you to take that, and the looks and your communication skills -- and you've always been interpreting the life of Frederick Douglass -- I want you to use that more and more as a way of communicating with young people, to try and get young people on track.' "

With his dying mother's words, he claims, his life took on new meaning and certitude, with Frederick Douglass as his beacon.

The Extra Letter

In the Meadville High School yearbook, he was "Fred Douglas." His student records at Morgan State, where he graduated as an English major in 1969, identify him as "Frederick Irving Douglas."

At some point, a second "s" began appearing in his surname. It is there in the 1982 trademark records for his barbecue sauce. In his mother's funeral brochure, on file at the Crawford County Historical Society in Meadville, he is listed as "Frederick I. Douglass Jr." His mother, father and brother are listed by the surname Douglas.

In a 1994 deed of trust, he signed as "Douglas." But in filing for bankruptcy in 1996, he signed court documents as "Douglass."

The Roman numeral IV appeared, too, on his byline in the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper and on his retirement letter when he left Morgan State in 2001 after 18 years as director of communications.